


Loss and Gain

by Control_Room



Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: 30 years later, Alternative Perspective, Anger, Angst, Fighting, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Hysteria, Jealousy, Lost Memories, Resentment, returning to the studio, slow insanity, unstable mental health
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 04:41:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17237621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Control_Room/pseuds/Control_Room
Summary: "Coming back to this old place well…it kind of reminds me of how much I’ve gained."Not everyone gained, Henry. Get your head out of the ink and look around.





	Loss and Gain

Henry finished his final recording and looked up. Willy was staring at him, the veteran’s eyes unreadable and darkened in the light. Henry looked back defiantly, as though asking him what his problem was. Willy shrugged, and, exhausted, collapsed on the ground near the wall, resting his chin on his knees. For some reason, searchers avoided him, and therefore, their two captors would drag him with them on their expenditures. Needless to say, between the wolf and the angel, he never got any relief. Henry was a mixture of envious and pitying for the younger man.

Today, or yesterday, or who knows when, they lost track of time ages ago, was different. Willy seemed resentful or detestful of Henry, refusing to talk to him, almost eager to be dragged by a rope through halls by their imprisoners. He gave him his food, but rejected the idea of eating with the former animator, taking his can of soup to a lonesome corner. After an excruciating amount of time of being alone but trapped together in the same room, Henry snapped. He formulated a plan to get the other to talk. He was too angry to allow Willy to be so… stubborn.

Willy, however, seemed intent on staying silent, despite the prompting questions asked, the conversations attempted, the nearly desperate demands to speech denied. He answered minimally, replied simply, and ignored Henry’s silent pleas. Henry could not understand why the former janitor’s behavior suddenly shifted. He now treated Henry more gently, but dealt with him less. Something tore between them, and Henry had no clue what it was, but he was hellbent on finding out for the sake of his sanity. He wrung out the details of his plot while Willy was out with the angel, the wolf too busy reading to notice Henry’s thinking expression, something the angel hated. Maybe he worried that Henry was planning escape. Some amount of time later, the angel returned, nearly dragging Willy behind him, tossing him forward and carelessly and uncaringly removing the rope from his red and raw wrists. Henry watched quietly from the doorway, then returned to their ‘cell’.

Willy came into their shared room, ink drying on his clothes, wrists angry and bruised, spared Henry a nod, and crept into the cot their detainers finally deemed fit to give them. Though they actually had two cots at this point, it wasn’t uncommon for them both to end up in one, Henry always cold and Willy in constant pain. So, that made the next stage in Henry’s rather ludacris plan much easier. About five minutes after Willy got into the cot, Henry faked a yawn and joined him. Willy rolled his eyes and rolled over, turning to face the wall, his posture stiff and mad. Henry pursed his lips. This would be harder than he thought. He held in a groan, this was also going  to have to take the route he would have rather avoided.

He wrapped an arm around Willy and drew him back.

“What the hell are you doing?” came the expected question. Henry, free from the other’s gaze, smirked lightly. “Henry?”

“Cold,” he muttered. Willy forced himself to relax, and found himself unable to as he found Henry’s knees pressing into the back of his. “You’re really warm, y'know?”

“Maybe 'cause Hell is all around me,” he retorted, but started feeling less and less comfortable with the situation. “B-but seriously, Hen, what are you doin’? Why are ya, um, spoonin’ me? And don’t say it’s because I’m warm.”

“So I can do this.”

Henry twisted Willy’s arm out from under him, turning to dig his knee into Willy’s back, his other hand pressing his head down. Willy was so stunned by the sudden attack that he hardly was able to react by the time he was pinned.

“W-what the Hell!?” he gasped, in more pain than a person should be subject to. “Henry, get off! What’s gotten inta ya!?”

“That’s what I’m asking you,” Henry replied calmly, Willy’s squirms and writhes to escape futile against the shorter but stronger man. “Why have you been acting so weird around me?”

“What are you talking about?” he demanded through agonizing sparks of pain shooting down his arm and up his back. “I’ve just been goin’ through the motions, sleepin’, eatin’, bein’ dragged down the halls of hell, and repeat!”

“You never talk to me anymore!” Henry barked, upset at having lost his only human company. Willy paused in his wriggling to escape to try and look at Henry, his face pushed against rough fabric. “You constantly avoid me! What happened? Why are you acting like this?”

“It’s nothing,” he answered hastily, tears slowly beginning to form in his painridden eyes. “Get off!”

“Not until you tell me what’s wrong!”

“Fuck you, Henry!”

“No, fuck you for being so stubborn!”

“Get off of me!”

“No! You’re going to tell me what’s bothering you, and then I’ll get off!”

“Hell no!”

“I can stay like this all night, Wilbur. But if you think you’ll be fine in the morning when they yank you around, you’ve got another thing coming.”

“Fuck you….”

“Tell. Me. Now.”

“Fuck!”

“Wilbur! Now!”

“It’s you, Henry!”

Henry froze. He never heard a more bitter statement. Even in all their captors’ arguments and debates over the two humans there was nothing so caustic. Willy also seemed to freeze. Henry got off of him, and he righted himself painfully. He refused to look Henry in the eyes.

“It’s you, alright!?” he snappingly reinstated, glaring at his hands. They clenched into angered fists. “You are just so! SO! ARGH! Infuriating!”

“Why?”

“Why, he asks,” Willy bit back, resentful. “You got to move on!”

“What are you talking about?” Henry demanded, gripping the other’s shoulder. “Move on from what?”

“This studio!”

“You’re not making any sense,” Henry grumbled, eyes narrowed. Willy glanced at him, then returned his contemptuous stare to the ground. Henry grabbed him by his white curls and forced him to look at him. “Tell me exactly what you mean by your damn cryptic remarks!”

“Don’t you get it, Mr. Gained-so-much!?” Willy hissed, tears resparking in his eyes. “I lost everything here!”

“Come now,” Henry rolled his eyes, “It couldn’t’ve been that bad.”

“You don’t fuckin’ understand,” Willy muttered, scrubbing at his eyes. “You’ve always had Linda, you never were completely alone.”

“Willy, neither were yo–”

“For ten. Fuckin’. Years.” Willy retorted, cutting him off angrily. Henry glared at him. He shrugged, turning to return to bed. “You wanted to know why I was upset, and here you go.”

Henry swiveled him back to face him.

“Full story,” he instructed. “Now.”

“Fine!” Willy nearly shouted, voice high and hysterical. “Let’s see who and what I lost in this hell! I lost my job, I lost my friends, future brother in laws, my best friend, my b-brother who was my fuckin’ TWIN, and my goddamn fiance! My daughters disappeared here for ten years, too! I was alone in an empty house for ten, long, painful years, then I lost my half sister and then my half brother together with my foot, and then my half sister in law, and I was a single father again! I had no clue how to take care of a newborn, and I was alone for months with just Sam until somehow the girls came back! I lost everything here!”

He was breathing roughly, painfully, tears streaming down his face. Henry gaped at him.

“And don’t you fuckin’ dare tell me you lost half as much to this hellhole,” he declared. “You hardly knew the people here! You couldn’t even remember Johnny’s last name, which, may I remind you, was Doe, because he was an orphan and the orphanage thought naming him John Doe would be funny! You crushed Jack without a second glance! You ripped Bertrum to bits when you could have waited for him to tire! You didn’t even attempt to reach Allison and Susie, and you let Norman be killed! You barely remember the floors of the studio, and you couldn’t even recognize the toy department or parts of the music department! You don’t know anything about this place! You don’t know how much I lost!”

“Y-you lost your foot?” Henry didn’t know what else to ask, too shocked. He glanced at Willy’s boots, and then realized he never saw him take them off. “When did that happen?”

“In the war after the one I liberated you in,” he tersely replied. He let out a cough of fluttering false laughter. “My half brother, Jericho, triggered a land mine. Blew him up, and got my side, ripped off part of my leg. The news of her husband’s death killed Rebecca after she had Sam. I could never be ready. I was on crutches for a year until Gonner and Marina, bless their souls, built me a replacement. But I still feel the blast, and I can remember the ringing in my ears from the explosion.”

“Was Johnny’s last name really Doe?”

“Yes, you self centered arse,” Willy rolled his eyes. “I swear, you and Joey were made for each other. Both of you stuck up stick in the muds without any idea of the pain you cause. You both were too blind to notice shit. In fact, I’d say Drew was better than you, in ways.”

“I-I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Willy smiled sharply, rough, angry, and vitriolic. “After all, you are afraid of the ink demon finding you. But I’m not.”

“W-what?”

“I’m not afraid, Henry, of the ink demon,” Henry stared at him as he relayed this simple statement. It was so absurd, everyone feared the demon, it was just a natural law in the wooden hell. Why was Willy an exception. “In fact, I’d welcome him. Let him scream.”

“How can you just… say something like that?” Henry inquired, slightly terrified by the other’s brash statements. Things like that would get them killed. “What do you mean, you’re not afraid?”

“Well, for one, there’s no worse enemy than one with nothing else to lose,” Willy replied, giddy and chipper. He grinned. “And my demons have been with me for my whole life. WHat’s one more to add to their number? Henry, Henry, you do not know me. I know you, because you are simple. But me? I already died, twenty times over. I died a little bit every time someone I cared about died. You never cared about them. I am the anti demon. And Joey better be fuckin ready to deal with Hell’s wrath aimed full force at his smug face, even if it kills me. Because I am ready for him to get the karma that he deserves. And who knows…”

A stretched grin crossed his face again, making Henry shirk back in a sudden fear.

“Maybe you’ll get what’s coming, too.”


End file.
